iPhone SMS Exploit Should Be Patched by the Weekend

Technology No Responses »
Jul 312009

In following up with yesterday’s story, I saw that AppleInsider had gotten wind of a BBC report that the iPhone SMS exploit should be patched by this weekend via an iTunes update.

For tech-heads that want more detail about how this exploit actually worked, the AppleInsider article detailed it:

The exploit takes advantage of the fact that SMS can send binary code to a phone. That code is automatically processed without user interaction, and can be compiled from multiple messages, allowing larger programs to be sent to a phone. The exploit supposedly exposes the iPhone completely, giving hackers access to the camera, dialer, messaging and Safari. It occurs regardless of hardware revision or which version of the iPhone OS is running.

The technique involves sending only one unusual text character or else a series of “invisible” messages that confuse the phone and open the door to attack. Because users won’t know whose messages to block in advance, there’s little iPhone owners can do but to shut off the phone immediately if they suspect they’re at risk — a real problem as the trick could also be used to make an iPhone send more messages of its own.

Hopefully this will indeed put any fears of possible hijacking by SMS to rest. Again, I will continue to update if I see any more news.

Posted by Ryan Ritter at 4:09 PM Tagged with: ,

Potential Security Hole Reportedly Found in iPhones

Technology No Responses »
Jul 302009

According to a recent Forbes report (and many other reports all over), two researches will plan on revealing a major security hole in iPhones this afternoon (Thursday, July 30th) at the Black Hat cybersecuirty conference. SMS text messages are apparently the culprit as detailed below:

If you receive a text message on your iPhone any time after Thursday afternoon containing only a single square character, Charlie Miller would suggest you turn the device off. Quickly.

That small cipher will likely be your only warning that someone has taken advantage of a bug that Miller and his fellow cybersecurity researcher Collin Mulliner plan to publicize Thursday at the Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas. Using a flaw they’ve found in the iPhone’s handling of text messages, the researchers say they’ll demonstrate how to send a series of mostly invisible SMS bursts that can give a hacker complete power over any of the smart phone’s functions. That includes dialing the phone, visiting Web sites, turning on the device’s camera and microphone and, most importantly, sending more text messages to further propagate a mass-gadget hijacking.

“This is serious. The only thing you can do to prevent it is turn off your phone,” Miller told Forbes. “Someone could pretty quickly take over every iPhone in the world with this.”

The problem has been reported to Apple; however, I have yet to see any official statement from them, but I will continue to look for them throughout the day. The best I have seen so far is an article from AppleInsider stating that Apple is indeed working on a fix and was supposed to be out at the end of this month (July) and before the conference reveals the bug too all.

Charles Miller is the one primarily responsible for finding this nice little loophole, and he’s done it before. So I would definitely believe this exploit is legit.

Being an iPhone owner myself, I will definitely be staying on top of this as best as possible. In the meantime, if you see any strange characters in a SMS text message, shut your iPhone off. Of course, if you don’t even want to risk it, you can try keep your iPhone off until this problem is resolved.

Although I’m sure that route will be as easy and trying to cut off a heroine addict cold turkey.

Quick little update: Found a CNET article that describes in detail what this hack can do.

Posted by Ryan Ritter at 6:24 PM Tagged with: ,

Me vs. Vista: Reinstall Aftermath

Technology No Responses »
Dec 122008

Surprisingly, everything went rather smooth more or less. The biggest snag I hit was setting up my RAID array as the documentation was lacking to say the least. The RAID utility function on my motherboard wasn’t exactly rather logical, but I did figure it out.

The first step that I had to do was enable my on-board SATA RAID controller. This will most likely be found in the “Integrated Peripherals” menu on the BIOS. After that, I saved and exited, rebooted the system and then saw a new screen during boot up. This was for the RAID utility to actually set up my RAID-1.

Once I got into the program, I was given 4 options: Examine Disks, Configure LD, Delete LD, and Configure Controller. There was also no help menu to be found. Joy!

It took me a little tinkering to figure out what was going on, but after a while I figured out how everything worked. The Configure Controller, was the actual utility to set up which RAID I want to configure. However, I was unable to do anything at first. This was because of my previous configuration. Going into ethe Examine Disks options, I saw that each one was assigned to a different LD and it automatically assumed it was in a normal setup. Going into Delete LD, I was able to remove both disks from those assignments. Checking Examine Disks again, I saw that both disks were marked as “Free” and would allow RAID assignment.

After that, I went into Configure Controller and saw new options. From here I selected RAID-1 and that I would have 2 disks in the array. I set the LD (I’ll be honest, I’m not 100% on what LD stands for, but considering what it does, I assume it means Logical Disk) for this RAID assignment to the first LD slot.

Finally, I went into Configure LD and assigned both disks to the RAID-1 array. After that, I had my RAID-1 ready to go…or so I thought. Vista does have a lot of RAID drivers at the ready, but unforutnately, it didn’t have mine on the CD so it couldn’t find my RAID-1. So I logged onto my work laptop, found the driver for my RAID controller, and placed it on a USB stick. In the past, you would have to use a floppy disk, but since those are phased out, Vista allows you to now use CD-ROMs and USB drives as well.

With drivers in hand, I went to try and install Vista again. When I reached the screen in which to pick a place to install Vista (that showed no hard drives), I selected “Install Drivers” on the screen and selected the appropiate folder on my USB Drive. Once the install completed, I saw my 500 GB RAID-1 on the selection screen. One important note here: despite there being 2 physical disks, Vista (or any OS) will see this as a single volume (or logical disk). The controller is taking controlling all needed RAID functions, so it only needs to tell Vista that there is one 500 GB volume on board to work with.

From here, I completely formatted all my old data off the hard drives, and partitioned the drives as I stated I would before (50 GB for OS, 100 GB for Programs, rest for Data Storage). With my partitions in place, I proceeded with the install.

After it completed, I went to moving files around. Since I want all my data on my Data Storage partition, I went into my user folder and moved all folders under my directory to that drive. To do this, I right clicked on a folder, clicked the “Location” tab, and changed the drive letter in the directory line to where I wanted to move it (in this case, I changed C:\ to E:\).

I was curious to see if this would work with the “Program Files” folder as well, but unfortunately (and I figured it wouldn’t) I was unable to do so. It isn’t that big of a deal though. I will leave all the current system programs in their current locations, but for anything else that I install, they will be going on my Program Parition (D:\ drive) as that is an easy process to do manually.

Something else that I saw will trying this was that there are two seperate Program Files folders, with one being named “Program Files x86″. The reason for this is that Vista is trying to seperate 64-bit applications from 32-bit (which x86 stands for). From what I have read, Vista tends to do a good job in figuring out which program belongs where. I will write more on this as I start to install various files.

As of now, I am currently going through Windows Updates as well as installing the latest versions for my drivers that Vista doesn’t recognize. The major part though is completely done and now I can start to restore my old files and install my old programs once again.

Posted by Ryan Ritter at 6:55 PM Tagged with:

Me vs. Vista: RAID, Partitions, and Reinstall of Vista

Technology No Responses »
Dec 122008
32 or 64-Bits?

In my last post, I mentioned how I didn’t like the current way my rig was setup.  In this post I will go into more detail of my current plans for my system and why I am doing them.

First off, I currently have 32-bit Vista installed, and I want to upgrade to 64-bit.  Thankfully since I have Vista Ultimate, I don’t have to go buy another version as it came with the 64-bit version as well.  And unlike it’s predecessor, 64-bit XP Pro, Vista has vastly improved the amount of hardware it can support as well as being able to easily emulate any 32-bit application (which most programs are).
Why do I care about this?  There are a few different reasons for this.  First off, is I will now have the room for major expansion of RAM.  Any 32-bit install will only allow me to use 4GB of RAM.  In comparison the 64-bit version of Ultimate will allow me to use 128GB of RAM (and more once PCs can actually support it).  RAM is easily one of the easiest and cheapest ways to boost performance to any system, so allowing that kind of breathing room is going to keep me quite safe.  As programs and games get more complicated, the more RAM will get sucked up.
Also, 64-bit is far more secure.  Many of the common attacks that are based on weaknesses of 32-bit systems are addressed.  Quite frankly, it is simply the most secure version of Windows you can install.  It isn’t a cure-all, one more security feature sure doesn’t hurt.
Finally, 64-bit OS is going to be our eventual future.  No one knows for sure, but the common belief is that the next Windows OS, Windows 7, will be only available in 64-bit.  When that happens, applications will go the same way, being 64-bit only.  This will allow me to hold onto my Vista build just a bit longer before I need to take a leap into another Windows OS.
There is one noted downside.  You can’t install non-digitally signed drivers on 64-bit.  More often than not this isn’t a problem for most anything you buy in a store, and more and more companies are doing a far better job of insuring their drivers are digitally signed.  However, if you have older hardware, it may flat out not work with 64-bit Vista for this reason and there isn’t anything that you can do about it.
However, all of my hardware will work with this upgrade, so I am going to proceed with it.  But make sure you check your hardware beforehand if you attempt this.
Fault Tolerance – RAID
I have talked a bit about performance, now it is time to move to fault tolerance.  Fault tolerance is basically ensuring that if you have a hard drive fail, your system will still be able to run with zero loss in data.  Note that this isn’t the same as having your computer backed up.  As I said before, if my system hard drive crashed, I wouldn’t be able to run Windows.  I would have to restore the backups before Windows would ever run again and that is a long process that I would rather avoid if I can.
The easiest way to do this is through a RAID-1 configuration.  RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks.  The -1 at the end refers to what type of RAID I am implementing.  The most common types are RAID-0, RAID-1, and RAID-5.
RAID-0, also called striping, allows you to take 2 or more disks and “stripe” your data across the disks — essentially allowing each disk to store half the data and therefore do half the work.  While this can increase performance, this isn’t fault tolerant at all.  If one disk fails, you will lose all data in the RAID-0.  Now, even though I am concerned with performance, the boost that I would get with RAID-0 isn’t really going to be too large for me.  Plus, I want to have a fault tolerant solution, so this won’t work.
RAID-1, also called mirroring, allows you to take 2 or more disks and “mirror” all data across the disks in the array.  So if I have two disks, all information that gets placed on the first disk will be replicated on the second.  The downside to this is that performance does go down slightly because you are having both disks doing the same work all the time.  Another downside is that you are only essentially using half of the available data on your disks.  The upside is huge though.  If one disk fails, you are fine!  You can boot the system off the other disk and still maintain all of your data.  This allows you to see what the problem with the other disk is, and if it needs to be replaced, you simply replace that bad disk and the mirror will replicate the data again.
RAID-5, also called striping with parity, is the happy medium between the two.  This setup requires at least 3 disks of the same size (you can use different disk sizes, but the “extra” space is wasted).  Like RAID-0, data is stripped across all disks, but there is also something called parity bits in the disks that will allow for data to be replicated if a disk should fail like RAID-1.  Performance-wise, this solution is right in the middle.
For my install, I am choosing to go with a RAID-1 solution.  Even though I will loose 500 GB, I feel it is worth it for being able to have a fault tolerant system.  Plus it saves me from having to buy another 500 GB disk to set up RAID-5!  While extra performance in hard disks would be nice, overall it isn’t going to give me much of a noticeable boost.
Disk Partitions
So now, I will basically have 500 GB (465 GB to be exact — this is because of the way MB are calculated, the manufactures will always round this value up!) in which to split up or partition the drive.
There are two schools of thought to this.  The first thinks partitioning is really just a waste.  The reasoning behind this is that it is just a waste of time and more to manage and, as far as restoration goes, it is simpler to image the whole drive on a backup and restore it to make sure you get everything.
The second, and the one I subscribe to, prefers partitioning the hard drive.  This keeps things better organized and separate.  For instance, general best practice is to split the drive up into the OS, Applications/Programs, Data Storage (Music, Pictures, etc).  Now with this setup there is a lot I can do over just one big partition.  Each partition will have it’s own needs.  For instance, the OS will fragment its files the most often, which degrades performance.  This drive will need to be fragmented often, and the process will be far quicker if I am just defragging a small part of a large hard drive.  The Data Storage partition though, doesn’t need defragging that often, but having say 100+ GB of music, picture, and movie files is going to make defrag operations take forever and it is unneeded.  You can also perform various different backup and security plans for each drive too (which I will go into after I reinstall Vista).
In short, having that flexibility is nice.  It may not be readily noticeable at first, but once I get to the backup/security section of this journey, I hope it will become a bit clearer.
One important thing to note though is that you should give plenty of room for the OS.  This is the most common pitfall in partitioning in my opinion.  My Windows folder is currently over 12 GB, but making a 20 GB partition could potentially cripple me when large service packs and Windows updates come in.  I’ve been told a good rule of thumb is about 30 GB for servers, but just to be safe, I’m going to give it a little bit more just to make sure I don’t run out for a long time.
Overall Install and HDD Plan

So with all of this in mind, here is the battle plan:
  • RAID-1 configuration
  • 1 partition for 64-bit Windows Vista Ultimate totalling 50 GB
  • 1 partition for programs/game installs totalling 100 GB
  • 1 partition for data with the remaining space (just over 300 GB)
In order to get this to work, I will have to do the following:
  • Back up all current data that I want to carry over on an external hard drive
  • Reboot the system
  • Go into system BIOS (you will see a key to press at the first screen when your system turns on)
  • Activate the RAID setting on my motherboard (this will vary depending on what you have)
  • Save all changes to BIOS and exit, allowing the system to continue to boot (ensure your OS CD is in the drive)
  • Vista Install will start, set up RAID-1 array (another good thing about Vista, it includes nearly all RAID drivers, no need for a floppy!)
  • Delete any current partitions and format to NFTS
  • Partition 50 GB for the Vista install
  • Install Vista
  • Partition the rest of the drive
  • Install all needed drivers
I’ll have a carnage report when this is done.
Posted by Ryan Ritter at 7:13 AM Tagged with:

Me vs. Vista: Current Confuration

Technology No Responses »
Dec 122008

Here is what I am currently working with (nothing has been overclocked):

  • MSI K9A Platinum Motherboard
  • AMD Anthlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+ 3.00 GHz
  • 2GB DDR2 RAM
  • VisionTek Radeon X1650 Pro (1278 MB Total available graphics memory)
  • 2 x 500 GB Maxtor 7200 RPM HDD
  • Realtek RTL8169/8110 Family PCI Gigabit Ethernet NIC
  • Memorex DVD-ROM RW Drive
  • Razar Barracuda AC-1 Gaming Audio Card
Current Configuration:
  • Windows Vista Ultimate (32 bit — UAC off, no other tweaks)
  • C: is one large partition for the OS, Data, and other Applications
  • E: is one large partition for all Game Installs
I will refer back to this post if I need to reference the way I had things set up.
In general though, the reason I am basically blowing the whole thing up is that as of right now, the E drive is under utilized, the OS is on one partition (I will explain further in another post why I don’t like this), and there is zero fault tolerance on the system (meaning if my HDD carrying my OS crashed, I would have to get a backup and completely re-install).
Posted by Ryan Ritter at 7:00 AM Tagged with:

Me vs. Vista: Introduction

Technology No Responses »
Dec 102008

Ok, time to take a break from sports and dive into my computer nerd mind.

Computers have always been a passion of mine (as well as my major at ND), and even more so, building/tweaking/configuring them as well. I’ve built several different systems for my family as well as myself. For me though, I definitely have a gaming rig in mind when I build/upgrade my personal desktop — meaning top technology and major boosts to performance are in mind.

To be honest, I never really realized how much I barely scratched the surface. During my time in college, I didn’t have a whole lot of time to devote to learning new technology and the hardware upgrades that were going on (I had enough to cram into my head). So after I got out, I realized just how much more I had to learn.

To compound that, once I got my job, I ended up getting slated as the “Microsoft Guy”, which as of now means I spend a lot of time studying for Microsoft certification exams for things like Server 2003 and Office Communications Server 2007. My first pass on a Microsoft exam came from one on Windows XP, and I couldn’t believe just how much I didn’t know in that exam as well as studying for some of the previously mentioned ones.

So this has led me to evaluate the situation with my current rig that I built. I really didn’t do anything too special to it. My last round of upgrades, I really didn’t do anything more than give it new parts: new processor, hard drives, RAM, Video Card and case. Around this time last year, I also took the big dive into everyone’s favorite Microsoft headache: Vista. I’ve noticed many of the same issues several people have had with performance, networking, and other wonderful Vista headaches. I have found work-arounds for some of these issues, but really haven’t invested much time into it.

Also, I have learned a lot more about security and fault tolerance for Microsoft systems and really haven’t applied to much of it to my current rig. Both of my hard drives are each 1 big partition and I only really have just a firewall/anti-virus setup for security outside of Firefox add-ons.

So armed with this new knowledge and several different resources on the internet, I am going to tackle my rig and completely redo and re-evaluate the whole thing. I’m going to post the whole process for two reasons. First, will be for personal documentation for myself. Second, I want to provide a online resource for anyone that is attempting to do any of the same things I did or have questions about some of these processes in general.

Right now, my current plan of attack will follow these phases and each will have an associated post (Please note, the following topics may end up being merged or appear in different order than listed):

  • Current System Overview: Hardware, Software, and Configuration
  • Do I Need Another Hardware Upgrade?
  • Windows Vista Re-Install (including backing up and restoring old files)
  • Partitioning Hard Drives with a Fault Tolerance Plan
  • Securing the System (without Vista’s horrible performance-sucking “enhancements”)
  • Tweaking and Enhancing Vista’s Performance
  • Overclocking the Processor and Video Card
  • Networking, Printing and File Sharing
  • Backup Plans and Maintenance
  • Final System Overview (Alternate Title: Did I Do It Right?)

I am looking forward to tackling these issues (some of which, will be for the very first time personally) and hopefully I can come out of it with a guide that can actually make sense.

I know most people ask “Why bother with Vista?” Well, the fact of the matter is, not only is Microsoft having new games pretty much running Vista only for the PC now (due to them needing DirectX 10, which is Vista only), you also can’t find a new PC without Vista being installed currently. So unless you have your own (legal or not) copy of Windows XP, you are pretty much stuck with Vista until the release of Windows 7 (or whatever they will call it in the future). One way or the other, most people will likely have to learn to deal with Vista and get around its nuances for the time being.

Well… all of that and I have an obession with being able to get new technology to work the way I would like it to. The challenege can be fun, even if it makes me pull my hair out at times.

Here’s hoping that I don’t turn my computer into a scrap of junk in the coming weeks.

Posted by Ryan Ritter at 3:25 PM Tagged with:
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